With all the fanfare they could muster, Apple entered the streaming music market a month ago, and the verdict is mixed. Mostly, the verdict has been “meh.” But I’m beginning to see the chorus of posts claiming how bad Apple Music is. And it’s time to weigh in, even if briefly.

Apple Music Sucks.

It’s not a Spotify or Pandora killer. It’s not going to be a great salvation for us musicians who are stupefied by our tiny royalty checks from spotify or Apple Play. (think $0.00014 per stream) Even top musicians, that I know, are getting $2 monthly royalty checks off successful catalogs. Okay, but what’s so bad about Apple Music?

It’s confusing.

Is Apple Music this Beats One radio thing? I could care less about streaming radio. DJ’s, talk, funny people, and some music. I don’t do radio at all. So Beats One is a bust for me. Beats One appears to be Apple going for cool, going for trendy, going for fashion and entertainment and zeitgeist and stuff. No thanks.

Beats One Radio = NO.

Is Apple Music about building radio stations around your favorite artists? Well, okay, but, if I’ve got every album by a certain artist, I’m not really needing a station on them. And besides, even if my kids are not, I am conscious about my monthly data plan that is getting eaten up by my son’s Pandora subscription.

Apple Music Stations = Maybe.

So I guess this is where the real magic is supposed to be. If I like an artist, but I’ve only heard a few of their songs, I can build a station around them. Just like Pandora. But I’m not all that interested in another Pandora. Again, I realize I’m not the target demographic.

The power of Pandora is in the human curated music. And this was supposed to be Apple Music’s killer feature. Curated lists, acquired in the Beats Music purchase, that would hip me to new and powerful playlists. Like Hip Hop by Dre. Or Disco by Madonna. The problem is, I could care less about those features. And users who are passionate about them, say the Apple Music playlist and playlist sharing feature is broken. Again, I’m not the target. But I’m also not impressed by the offering at this time.

Apple Music Playlists = Not Ready for Prime Time

And so, for me Apple Music feels like it should be it’s own app, and not muck up the already confusing iTunes. But that’s not what happened. And I’m hopeful that Apple will get it right over time. But there are still some maddening things about iTunes as well, that they never fixed.

I’m a Mac without a great music app. And Apple Music just made the one we have worse. So yes, Apple Music sucks, but so did iTunes before it. Perhaps Apple will pull a miracle drug out of Bono’s ass and create the killer music app for the iPhone and Mac. I’m not holding my breath.